Adia
by talena
Summary: Response to a Challenge on Rfn. ** AU M/L** A brutal attack leaves Liz Parker Evans without her memory. As she begins to rebuild her life, husband and wife fall in love all over again.


**Title:** Adia  
**Author:** talena  
**Disclaimers:** Anything Roswellian belongs to Jason Katims. *sigh* Even my Zan. The idea for this story belongs to…LoL! The idea doesn't even belong to me [grin] and the song Adia belongs Sarah McLachlan.  
**Category:** AU M/L; CCs  
**Genre/Rating:** Drama & Romance with a healthy dose of Angst / PG-13 up to a possible NC-17   
**Dedication:** To Erin and Phoebe! Special dedications to Lillie for everything!  
**Summary:** Response to a challenge issued by Lillie. I'm going to use her challenge as sort of a summary since I'm too lazy to come up with one of my own. LoL [wink]  
  
**The Challenge**   
  
After a brutal attack leaves Liz Parker Evans without her memory, her husband declares that she is another woman. She begins to find out just what that means when she begins to try to recover that lost memory.   
  
The life that emerges is one of a bitter and depressed woman who has apparently alienated everyone, including her husband. He has already filed for divorce. This new woman that she has become though, convinces him to put his plans on hold.   
  
As she rebuilds her life Liz and husband fall in love again. There is danger lurking however, and one last angry memory waiting to surface. Will their love survive?   
  
**Author's Notes:** This is a new approach for me, so bear with me ok?? I have the basic plot in my mind, but that's all, so if things start getting a little choppy or just plain weird, then tell me ok?? Please tell me what you think and thanks for reading!   
  
_On with the story!_   
  
~*~   
  
_Adia I do believe I failed you  
Adia I know I let you down  
Don't you know I tried so hard to love you in my way  
It's easy let it go..._   
  
~*~   
  
**Bittersweet**   
  
Night had fallen. The sun had long surrendered its warming light to the inky blackness of the evening sky, leaving the world to be bathed in darkness with only the soft glow of the crescent moon and the stars to shine a path for the weary souls who wondered the streets at night. In the distant a soft cooing sound was heard as the owl and other creatures of the night awakened from their slumber to begin their nightly routine of survival.   
  
Across the city, lights faded from the windows of many homes as families wandered once again to the world of slumber and dreams while others left the comfort of their homes to dance the night away at some club. Others left to their jobs and still many made their way to the many bars littered around New York City.   
  
Yes, night had fallen.   
  
But then again why should it matter to her? Her world had long been cloaked in a darkness that would never leave her side. Whether it is daytime or nighttime, her skies forever remained a dark void with the occasional wisps of gray that signaled an impending storm.   
  
Why should anything matter to her at this point? Why should anything matter at all?   
  
That's right. Nothing should matter anymore. Nothing _did_ matter anymore. She didn't matter. He didn't matter. Life didn't matter. Not since that day. Not since…   
  
She shook her head fiercely as her mind worked to rid herself of the memories. They were after all, just memories. Images of a past she would rather forget if she could. A past she _had tried_ to forget, if not for the constant reminders, perhaps, she would have forgotten already. It was an endless battle that she fought against herself and the rest of the world. An endless battle that would usually lead her here at the end of each meaningless day.   
  
Here was her only haven from the outside world. Here was her study. The one place she knew her husband would not follow her to, could not follow her too. Behind the locked door and heavily draped windows, here was where she cut off any connection to the outside world completely. Here was where she found solitude. However, no locks or drapes in the world could keep away the memories. Nothing in the world could possibly keep away the emotions and flashes that haunted her on a daily basis.   
  
Glancing over at the manila envelope that lay on her desk, a smile lifted the corners of her mouth. It would also seem that locks could not keep her husband from delivering that particular package either. _So he had gone through with it after all._ The thought was bitter as her gaze settled once again on the fire in front of her and drank from the glass she held in her unsteady hand. The bitter liquid traveled down her throat, burning a familiar path as she once again drowned herself in alcohol and it was only in these rare moments did she actually allow the memories to flow freely.   
  
_"Please tell me what's wrong."   
  
She glanced at him briefly before her gaze once again returned to the fire and she drank slowly from her glass. He continued unfazed, she had been like this for the past months.   
  
"Let me help you."   
  
His words seemed to ignite the something in her as a light sparked in her once dead eyes.   
  
"Help me? You want to help me? After all this time, you finally want to help? Where were you when I needed you before? Where were you when-" By this time she had thrown the glass she was holding at him, and tears were streaming down her cheeks as sobs wracked her body. He had held her then, tightly against his own body as she wept. He said nothing, merely held her. After all, what was there to say? This is the most emotion she had shown such a long time.   
  
Alas, it was not to last as he suddenly felt himself being forced away from her small form. His eyes snapped open when he felt himself suddenly hit the ground and found his wife standing over him, her eyes dead. "You can't help me."   
  
She spun to run out of the room, but he grabbed her hand. "No! I love you! Please don't shut me out!"   
  
Her eyes connected with his, and for a moment flashed with emotion at his declaration of love. His heart sped up as hope began to fill him, but any hope that he had managed to grasp when her eyes dulled again, and he could almost see the wall she had suddenly built around her heart, keeping everything and everyone away from it. The wall that kept him away from her heart and her soul. He felt his own heart shatter at the stony look in his wife's eyes. Eyes that were now filled with contempt and love at the same time, as she whispered her last true words to him, "I'm sorry."   
  
'Too late!' His mind screamed as he watched her walk away from him. Not once did she even look back at him, at the life and sanity she had chosen to leave behind. Not once. _   
  
She had walked away then, but in the end she had returned, never able to leave him. However, from that moment on, their love had gradually began to fade as did their marriage as the two continued to live with one another, a part of their shattered hearts holding onto that eternal promise of 'till death do us part'.   
  
She stood up on shaky legs, her unsure arm trying to steady herself on the armchair of her chair. Walking precariously and drunkenly towards her desk, she paused as she looked down at the picture from her wedding day and then looked over at the envelope on her desk.   
  
It would seem that death would not be the reason that would part them after all. No, the thing that would tear them apart was a mere stack of papers sealed in an envelope just as their fate had been sealed on that fateful day.   
  
A laugh bubbled up inside of her, half from madness and the other half from the bottle of vodka she had drank that night. The sound was coarse and unfamiliar even to her ears it reverberated around the room. Her head was thrown back with her mirth; her whole body shaking from the force of the bitter sounding laugh, the liquid in her glass splashed everywhere as she swayed on unsteady legs.   
  
Just as soon as it had come, her laughter died on her lips as she collapsed in her desk chair, now scowling at the envelope and picture in front of her. Placing her glass down, a steadier hand picked up the envelope, one thought running through her mind. _He really had gone through with it._   
  
Three years ago, the very idea that he could really leave her so easily would have broken her, but now, three years had passed. Things were said, feelings were expressed, and actions were made between the two of them, and she found that this little thing could not break her. Not when she was already broken.   
  
Looking down at the envelope again, she nodded to herself. He wanted freedom from their marriage, their love, from her. With each passing thought, she became angrier and angrier as her mind became irrational caused only by the alcohol she had been taking in that night. No! He wanted the freedom to fuck other women! He wanted freedom from having to look at her! Without conscious thought, Liz had thrown her glass to the other side of the room, a tortured scream of fury escaping her lips. The glass hit the wall and shattered into several pieces just as her life had three years ago.   
  
Yanking her wedding ring off from the chain hanging around her neck, she threw it also. If he wanted his freedom then she would give it to him. She didn't care about him anymore, and he certainly didn't care for her. He probably only married her just so that he could get her into bed. The thought alone was irrational, but her mind wasn't very rational as she threw the photo into the fire before she stumbled out of the room, eyes crazed as she left her home to seek comfort in more alcohol.   
  
~*~   
  
He waited until he heard the slamming of the front doors before entering the large study. Carefully stepping around the broken glass, he glanced around the room. He started to pick up the pieces of glass when something caught his eye, upon closer examination; he saw that it was a ring. Her wedding ring. Their promise of forever.   
  
Walking further into the room, with the ring resting in his palm, he noted something withering in the flames, and when he looked closer, he saw that the photo of their wedding day, and his heart clenched as he watched the photo go up in flames. He watched until the only thing remaining were ashes just as he had stood by helplessly watching their marriage go up in flames.   
  
So she had seen the divorce papers. He looked over at her desk and wondered if she had actually signed them. Crossing the length of the room, he reached the desk only to see that she hadn't even opened the packet. It was then he heard the starting of an engine, and he pulled the heavy drapes aside to see her pulling out of the driveway.   
  
Glancing down at the ring in his hand, he felt the tears trickle down his cheeks, his mind remembering their vows of forever as the world witnessed the bonding of two souls. Back then, their hope for a beautiful life together before and even after death was overwhelming. They believed nothing would separate them. Not even death itself.   
  
Now, it would seem that Time wasn't on their sides as it was now clear that their time together had finally run out as Max Evans watched his wife walk away from him once more. It was a bittersweet ending to a bittersweet love.   
  
tbc…(???)   
  
**So how did I do? Lillie? Anyone? **


End file.
